Trenchwork

Some of you seem to suffer under the peculiar illusion (although I suspect “delusion” is equally appropriate) that I’m an excellent spinner.  When that realization dawned on me—and after I finished laughing myself silly—I realized that the only way to dispell such nonsense was to actually show you a goof in all of its ignominious glory.  Now, mind you, I’m not showing you a proper disaster.  A girl has to have some pride, after all.  But this will do.

Yes, you can click for bigger.  You have my permission.  Feel free.  Then come back here when you’re finished trying to figure out exactly what it is and I’ll explain it. 

Back?

Confused?  Ah, well, let me enlighten you.  In the ongoing attempt to create some novelty yarns for demo purposes, I decided to use the remaining 4 ounces of the last Spunky Eclectic club fiber (the one which went into the seed yarn in the previous post) in a different novelty.  That would allow the kids to see how the same fiber can look like two entirely different things, depending on how it’s spun.  Makes perfect sense, yes?

I thought so.

And then I thought that a good contrast would be an eyelash yarn.  That makes perfect sense too, right?

I thought so, too.

And so I span the remaining 4 ounces into a single with a reasonable amount of twist and plied it back on itself from a center-pull ball, allowing the lashes to create themselves about every 12 inches.

And then I quit thinking.

I was actually a bit too tired to  think, and I really shouldn’t have been spinning this particular yarn.  I should have opted for a plain vanilla spin until I could remember how to work some of those grey cells.  But clearly the grey cells which would have reminded me to do that were already asleep.

So, I finished the yarn.  275 yards in 4 ounces, an eyelash about every 12 inches, and about 14wpi.  And then I looked at it.

Not bad, muttered one functioning grey cell, not bad.
But a bit boring, said its mate.
There’s that, the first agreed.  And some of those lashes keep trying to slip out of place. So what shall we do?
Well, said the second, rubbing is figurative chin, we could ply it with a binder thread.
Oh!  Now that’s a good idea, enthused the First, wondering absently why its voice seemed to echo around the place.
So First and Second, noticing how oddly empty the space around them seemed but not unduly concerned about it, pondered the issue until they decided that a nice, multicolor metallic thread should do just the trick, and then set things in gear.

Before they could have said their respective names, the deed was done and the 2-ply yarn was plied again with shiny thread.  But because the rest of the grey mob was either asleep or on strike, neither First nor Second quite realized that they’d forgotten to add some twist to the thread before they plied it to the yarn, and that definitely made a difference.  All they knew was that the binder thread seemed a bit slippery and loose.  So, in their infinite wisdom (or lack thereof), they decided to ply the plied yarn with yet one more binder thread, this time in the other direction.

And then they went back to sleep.

When the entire mob woke the next day and realized what First and Second had been up to, there was a bit of chaos, and naturally Third through Unknown Billion ranted and raved and were appropriately disappointed in First and Second’s performance who were then exiled and put on bread and water until they could learn to not have bright ideas until the rest of the group was awake and functioning as well.

The problem, they explained, was that First and Second had forgotten to add twist to the binder thread.  So, when they plied the yarn with the binder the first time, they nearly unspun the yarn trying to get a decent twist per inch, and the binder still wasn’t firmly placed on the yarn, and it unbalanced the yarn.  Re-plying it in the opposite direction with another binder thread nearly returned the yarn to its previously balanced state, but it also loosened up the first binder ply.  The end result, of course, is that the binder threads did their job and locked things in place, but they’re much too lose and, in some cases, nearly parallel the wool yarn underneath.

Ah, well.  Done was done, and there wasn’t much they could do to fix the problem.  So they submitted the yarn to a very abusive wash and fulled it, which of course further locked things in place.  But the binder threads definitely don’t have that firm X over the wool yarn they’d intended, and the universal opinion—now that they’re all awake—is that there will probably be little glittery loops of thread which stick out from the fabric once it’s all knitted.

And there you have it.  I’ve chosen to forgive First and Second.  After all, their hearts were in the right place and it’s not their fault if everyone else had abandoned them.  And since knitting hides a multitude of spinning sins, I’ve about decided to go ahead and knit it up into a simple scarf for the demo rather than leave the yarn in the skein.  The students will never know, and hey—they might see a practical use for all those things they didn’t know they could do in the first place.

All things considered, I suppose it could be worse.